Tuesday, 30 July 2013

Liwa al-Islam Deploys Advanced Surface-To-Air Missiles Systems

This morning, a number of people have sent me the following video, posted by Liwa al-Islam, a major opposition group that operates outside of the Free Syrian Army, showing the use of what appears to be an advanced anti-aircraft missile system

The description of the video claims this is a 9K33 Osa (SA-8), a radar based surface-to-air missile system that's a huge step up from the shoulder-fired MANPADS deployed by the Syrian opposition so far

While only the inside of the vehicle is shown, images of the inside of a 9K33 Osa variant (not the exact type as the one shown in the video) shows a close match to what's seen in the video:

You'll note the pattern of buttons below the screen matches, although it's not a perfect match as it appears to be a different variant of the 9K33 Osa shown in the video.

It seems likely this is one of the 9K33 Osas captured by Liwa al-Islam in October, shown in the below video

Since December there has been no sign of the 9K33 Osas they claimed to have captured, believed to have been between 2-4, and no sense of the amount of missiles captured. It could be they only have the missiles mounted on the 9K33 Osas when they were captured, or they managed to capture additional missiles. Either way, for the time being it appears Liwa al-Islam has raised the stakes in the air war in Syria.